His High Superfluousness

Robinson Jeffers, Carmel, California poet  (1887-1962)

HIS HIGH SUPERFLUOUSNESS 
(Some excerpts from Jeffers)

The beauty of things
Is in the beholder's brain --
The human mind's translation
Of their transhuman intrinsic value.

As mathematics, a human invention
That parallels but never touches reality
Gives the astronomer metaphors 
Through which he may comprehend
The powers and the flow of things: 
So the human sense of beauty 
Is our metaphor for their excellence, 
Their divine reality -- like dust in a whirlwind, 
Making the wild world visible.

Is it not by his high superfluousness we know
Our God? For to equal a need
Is natural, animal, mineral: but to fling
Rainbows over the rain.

And beauty above the moon, and secret rainbows
On the domes of deep sea shells.
Not even the weeds to multiply without blossom
Nor the birds without music.

Look how beautiful 
Are all the things that He does.

His signature
Is the beauty of things.